A device driver is a program routine that links a peripheral device to an operating system running on a computer. It is written by programmers who understand the detailed knowledge of the device's command language and characteristics and contains the precise machine language necessary to perform the functions requested by the application. Every peripheral device requires a driver. The drivers provide the detailed instructions necessary to activate and control the device.
When a new hardware device is added to the computer, such as a display adapter, sound card or CD-ROM drive, its driver must be installed in order to run it. Similarly, when a new peripheral device is connected to one or more computers through a communication medium such as a serial bus, a driver for the peripheral device must be installed for each operating system on each computer. In either case, the operating system calls the driver, and the driver “drives” the device.
Unfortunately, manufacturers generally provide drivers for peripheral devices on floppy disks or CD-ROMs. Thus, whenever a new device is to be installed on a computer, the operating system prompts the user to insert the computer-readable medium containing the appropriate driver. This is especially problematic when the peripheral device is coupled to a serial bus such as an IEEE 1394 (e.g. FireWire™, I.LINK™) bus, where multiple computers may need to simultaneously or sequentially load drivers for the device.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide methods and apparatus for automatically loading drivers for devices coupled to a communication medium such as an IEEE 1394 serial bus.